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O'Dea was a former lawyer from Ireland. He was arrested for supporting the Irish rebellion and transported to Australia for life.
He joined a work party of convicts that accompanied British aviators in search of a path from Sydney across the Blue Mountains. He was given to what William Laurence described as "inconvenient poetry" and telling tall tales. When Jack Telly was snatched by a bunyip, O'Dea frightened everyone with the notion that his spirit would haunt them for leaving him behind.
Eventually, Laurence found a useful task for O'Dea: keeping a log of the journey. His entries tended to be full of colorful language and short on facts, but it served to supplement Laurence's own log. Later, after the second governor had been ousted from Sydney, O'Dea's log was often read in bars across the city, encouraging the colonists to embrace free trade.